Georgia

Georgia: Georgian Coastal Zone encompasses part of the Black Sea on 326 km of length from the mouth of the River Psou (state border with the Russian Federation ) to Kelenderi Cape (border with Turkey ).The Hydrometeorological Service of Georgia officially was formed in May 14, 1844 , when founded Observatory of Tbilisi. In 1929 for better servicing of developed public industry on the base of observatory was created Hydrometeorological Committee of Georgia. In 1932 the synoptic division of observatory firstly changed into Institute of weather later weather bureau. Since 1938 had began observations to the chemical structure of surface waters. Water measuring works of Georgian rivers were begun since the second half of XIX century.In 1918 - 1923 the hydrological observations in Georgian rivers canceled and rehabilitated only in the beginning of 1930, when from the department of water-industry placed under control the hydrological posts, calibration station and hydrological division to the Meteorological service of the country, the amount of hydrological posts in 1990 was more than 140.Marine meteorology is one of the parts of the hydrometeorological service. It was created in 1964. In the coastal zone of Georgia there were until the early 1990s 32 meteorological stations, 6 tide gauges, ship observations on 35 hydrographic stations and 45 observations stations in regards to marine pollution monitoring.

At present, research vessels that belonged to the Adjarian Hydrometeorological Department, as well as to other institutions are out of operations and ship-borne observations do not exist. The majority of the ships of opportunity (e.g. ferry-boat from ports of Batumi and Poti to Varna , Bulgaria ) are carrying out the routine observations, fixing them in the logbooks, but an additional managing is needed for data exchange.

From the year of 2001 Tbilisi State University (Dep. of Meteorology and Oceanology, DNA) launched the marine cruise programme aiming to revitalize investigations and monitoring of hydrochemical composition and pollution of the coastal waters. Coast guard vessel ("HYDROGRAPHY") is under operation for the purpose.

Stationary buoys and platforms:

There are not any kind of buoys and platforms installed or used for oceanographic data collection.

In the year of 2001 DNA of IOC, UNESCO was established in Tbilisi State University as an essential part of National Oceanographic infrastructure. Information collected by DNA recently suggests that large amounts of marine related data and relevant diversity of data sets are held by major governmental organizations (State Dep. of Hydrometeorology).

At the present time, only the very small proportion of data collected is accessible in a form, which can be readily and accurately engaged in research. The first metadata catalogue of oceanographic data in Georgia will be available soon (DNA).

Also, GIS applications were implemented at the DNA for processing existing valuable sets of bathymetric (mainly) data. DNA disseminate the data product using on-demand order. Means of communications for data flow through observational network are out of operation and need general upgrade.